Poem in Your Pocket Day - April 27

For the last several years, UWSP Libraries has celebrated National Poetry Month in April with our key event being Poem in your Pocket Day, April 27, 2023. 

Today, you will find poems available in various locations around campus for you to take, enjoy, and share.

We also encourage you to celebrate this day by taking a few moments to read and share a poem, and here are a few tips to help:

• Select a poem and share it on social media using the hashtag #pocketpoem. 
• Pass a poem to a friend/colleague at work
• Share one of the recorded Poems from Home readings from the UWSP Libraries Guide 
• Record a video of yourself reading a poem, then share it on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, or another social media platform you use. 
• Email a poem to your friends, family, neighbors, or local government leaders.
• Schedule a video chat and read a poem to your loved ones.
• Add a poem to your email footer.
• Make a poetry playlist.

Thank you for celebrating with us, and we leave you with two poems:

The Traveling Onion

BY NAOMI SHIHAB NYE

 

WHEN I THINK HOW FAR the onion has traveled

just to enter my stew today, I could kneel and praise

all small forgotten miracles,

crackly paper peeling on the drainboard,

pearly layers in smooth agreement,

the way the knife enters onion

and onion falls apart on the chopping block,

a history revealed.

And I would never scold the onion

for causing tears.

It is right that tears fall

for something small and forgotten.

How at meal, we sit to eat,

commenting on texture of meat or herbal aroma

but never on the translucence of onion,

now limp, now divided,

or its traditionally honorable career:

For the sake of others,

disappear.

 

Things That Don’t Suck by Andrea Gibson

Salamanders. Rotary phones. Super woman capes. Hopscotch chalk. Unicycles. Hiccups while kissing. Pole Vaults. Gumball machines. Leprechauns. Music Boxes. Welcome Mats. Hand-me-down lockets. Train rides. Carnivals. Record players. Sewing kits. Barbershop chairs. Bubbles. Chestnuts. Barnacle hugs. Door frames. Melted crayons. Soldiers in the airport on their way home. Icicles. Time capsules. Hourglasses. Recess bells. Thrift store coffee mugs. Lost and found boxes. Go-Carts. Tambourines. Fire pits. Paper boats. Snap peas. Snowflakes. Bay windows. Porch swings. Dance routines. Macaroni necklaces. Flying ladybugs. High fives. Ferris wheels. Extra buttons. Crooked teeth. Dust drawings. Bearded women. Fabric stores. Turtle faces. Sleepovers. Mixed Tapes. Grandmothers. Freckles. Lily pads. Farmers’ tans. Windpipes. Accordions. Anyone willing to play the shakers in a band. The day I was so in love I mistook a nuclear power plant for a lighthouse. French kisses. The smell of a dog’s paw. Thumb wars. Letters in the mailbox. The things we never ordered but still arrived. Riding in the back of a pick-up truck beneath a holy New England sky. Banjo strings. Best friends. Tutus on boys. Tutus on girls. Hummingbirds. Whittle sticks. Hail collections. Rocking chairs. Thimbles. Love notes. Cigar boxes. Screen doors. Clawfoot tubs. Hopechests. Skateboard parks. Mismatched socks. Airplane sky-writing proposals. Baby giraffes. Beaver teeth. Porch lights. Tiny houses. Tire swings. Dandelion snow. Drive-in movie dates. Bathrooms without scales. Shitty poems. Chugging calming tea. Sex with the lights on. Sex with the lights off. Basketball hoops in dirt driveways in Iowa. Snort laughs. Sexy librarians. Vegan chocolate chip cookies. Boomboxes in the car when the stereo breaks. Slip N’ Slides. Butterflies that remember being caterpillars. Staying alive.